Sexual Addiction & Betrayal Trauma: Boundaries, Grief and Healing with Roxanna Johnson
Notes from the Edge - Lisa Lacy
In this powerful episode of Notes from the Edge, host Lisa Lacey sits down with Roxanna Johnson, author and advocate who shares her personal journey through betrayal trauma caused by her
Key takeaways
- Betrayal trauma is a recognized biological and psychological condition affecting spouses, often leading to PTSD-like symptoms.
- Spouses frequently become hypervigilant, controlling, or emotionally dysregulated due to prolonged exposure to deception and instability.
Main topics
- Betrayal trauma from sexual addiction
- Spousal healing and recovery without partner accountability
Notable quotes
"When you live in a dysfunctional place and addiction brings dysfunction to the surface, it changes you. And you almost begin what I call a dance to survive."
"Your world becomes unsafe. And so this trauma is cellular. It's in every cell of your body and it breaks your fight or flight system."
Conclusion
Roxanna Johnson's story underscores the urgent need for societal recognition of spouse trauma and the
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:04) Welcome to Notes from the Edge, where we have the conversations we should have been having all along. We talk about the things that we're not talking about. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, writer, trauma educator, executive advisor, and author of the upcoming memoir, Notes from a Certified Madwoman. Welcome to the Edge. Speaker 1 (0:34) Hey, hey, my friends, welcome back to another episode of Notes from the Edge. I'm your host, Lisa Lacey, and this is the place we have the conversations that we should have been having all along. In here, we talk about the things you're not talking about. You don't want to talk about them, but we're gonna, and hopefully you'll learn something today. And today's guest and today's topic are so near and dear to me because I believe it's so needed. Our guest today is Roxanna Johnson. She is an author, speaker, and advocate whose work centers on helping women and spouses heal from betrayal trauma. which we now know does way more than we learned earlier with faith, compassion, practical wisdom, and truth. Her message is shaped by lived experience. Guys, she's been through it and we honor that in here. Research and years spent supporting people in recovery communities. After discovering that her husband of nearly 24 years had maintained a hidden pattern of sexual addiction throughout their marriage, she began the difficult work of understanding what betrayal trauma can actually do, codependency, boundaries, forgiveness, and recovery. Her book, Forgotten in the Battle with Sexual Addiction, The Journey of a Spouse, because families do not have or get enough support and education. Her book gives voices to spouses and partners who are frequently overlooked while the attention remains on the person recovering from the addiction. She teaches that healing is possible even when the addicted partner does not choose recovery. And she's got such a fascinating story. So we're going to stop it there because we were already doing the podcast before the podcast and we had to stop it. Roxanna, welcome to Notes from the Edge for this very, very pivotal topic. It's so nice to have you. Speaker 2 (2:30) It's so nice to be here, Lisa. I really look forward to this. Good. Speaker 1 (2:34) I'm glad. I'm glad. If it's okay, we're just going to jump right in and see what rabbit holes we dive down today, what people need to hear. We'll go where we go. So you call the day your husband disclosed to you this hidden sexual behavior, the bomb. Speaker 2 (2:56) I do. So Speaker 1 (2:58) what happened? Speaker 2 (2:59) What happened? It blew up my life. Speaker 2 (3:04) I've found as I've worked with, you know, hundreds of women that they all have a similar, they call it D-Day, they call it all sorts of things. But it's a day that rocks your world. It's a day that changes you. Because what you thought your life was is not what it is. Speaker 1 (3:29) Because... Speaker 2 (3:30) someone has been deceitful, someone that you were supposed to trust, be able to trust. And that is exactly what betrayal trauma is, is it's when someone that you are supposed to be able to trust breaks that trust in a financial, sexual, emotional, physical, or even mental way. And so Speaker 2 (3:55) It's a new science. When I went through this, betrayal trauma was not a recognized term, although it had been researched in the 1990s. It still was, it hadn't floated up to the surface. And largely that's because the families and spouses of anyone who struggles with addiction or partners or friends, we're largely in a way ignored. And I don't mean that in a bad way. But what happens is the services and the clergy and people who are well-meaning think, well, if we can just help the person who struggles with the addiction, be it alcohol or sex or gambling, If we can fix them, then that will fix the family. And that is not true. Because when you live in a dysfunctional place and addiction brings dysfunction to the surface, it changes you. And you almost begin what I call a dance to survive. Speaker 2 (5:18) and and so Speaker 1 (5:19) trauma for everybody right Speaker 2 (5:21) and so everybody Speaker 1 (5:22) back Speaker 2 (5:23) to the bomb when um when a person's behavior or substance abuse or sexual you know misconduct is comes into the light all of a sudden for me and for many others I've worked with is you realize that dance didn't work. Speaker 1 (5:45) And that Speaker 2 (5:46) brings up so many emotions and so many feelings. And you start to wonder if your entire life is fake and that comes with all sorts of problems as well. Speaker 1 (6:01) Yeah, it really does. It really does. And I think, I think too, There's so much shame. There's so much stigma, even still with science backing this, that we do such a great job of hiding some of it that when it finally does come out, it's like we're almost not believed. Right. Speaker 2 (6:24) Because most Speaker 1 (6:25) spouses are not. Yeah. Speaker 2 (6:28) Most spouses are not Speaker 1 (6:29) believed. Speaker 2 (6:30) Yeah. And a lot of that. And I'm speaking specifically of. of betrayal trauma with sexual addiction now. Because, and I have no animosity for the person who struggles. In fact, I have deep honor and reverence for those who struggle and fight that struggle because it takes a Herculean effort. But it, Speaker 2 (7:04) It is something that you can't describe about the spouse and they have to address what has happened to them. Speaker 1 (7:15) And, Speaker 2 (7:16) and, and, but, but part of that addressing is that they have to. face and tell people that their spouse or their partner or their parents are not the people that they portray themselves to in public. That's one of the reasons why pornography addiction or sexual addiction or sexual compulsion, whatever it's called, because there's many names out there. Speaker 1 (7:50) That's Speaker 2 (7:50) one of the reasons why it is so damaging is because the person who is experiencing it has lived in deceit and their facade is almost bulletproof. Speaker 1 (8:06) And Speaker 2 (8:07) then when you add betrayal on top of that, so the spouse learns that their life is not what they thought it was. And so they become hypervigilant. They become, they start checking everything. They become, sometimes until they find some recovery, they become controlling. They can't regulate their emotions. About 70 % of these spouses show symptoms of PTSD. And so what you have happening is to the outside world, many times these spouses look like they're crazy. Speaker 1 (8:48) Yeah. Speaker 2 (8:49) In fact, it is Speaker 1 (8:50) crazy making. Yes. Yes. Speaker 2 (8:54) And, and because the, the, the person struggling has become so good at the facade of I'm a Mr. Or Mrs. Nice guy. Yep. They can turn the button or, or turn the switch. I call it almost instantly. And the other thing is. they have their drug. And so they go to their drug to regulate. And meanwhile, the spouse or the partner has nothing to go to. And oftentimes, they're so seeped in isolation and shame that even what social support they had disappears because people don't know what to make of them. Speaker 1 (9:45) It does. It does. And I want to circle back to something very important that you said, because I want you to speak to us about it. This experience of betrayal trauma, as it relates to sexual addiction. is a biological experience for the spouse as well. It is not just an emotional experience. From your research and from working with hundreds of clients, speak to us about that because you talked about the distrust, the hypervigilance, the controlling behavior that I don't want it to happen again. What's happening? Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2 (10:19) Your world becomes unsafe. And so this trauma is cellular. It's in every cell of your body and it breaks your fight or flight system. And so you, I remember being in a meeting that I had attended a hundred times and having a panic attack. And largely that's because you have no outlet for all these emotions and your body and your mind are screaming at you that they're not safe and they're not. And until you start implementing some of the pillars of recovery, that your body and mind screaming that you're not safe, it doesn't know the difference between a bear attacking you and this happening to you. Speaker 1 (11:13) That is Speaker 2 (11:14) the Speaker 1 (11:15) person you thought was safe is a threat now. Speaker 2 (11:18) They are a Speaker 1 (11:19) literal threat now. And so, and so no, and nobody's coming to you going, Hey, you need recovery too, by the way. And the Speaker 2 (11:29) other thing is, is I remember thinking, what is wrong with me? What has happened to me? And I was a competent adult and actually I could flip the switch and go to work and be a professional except on the worst days. Speaker 1 (11:47) And Speaker 2 (11:47) so, you know, my message to women is that you have to find a place that is safe to share your story. You have to learn what safety is and build a safe place for yourself so you can rediscover your own soul and you can make yourself safe. no matter what your partner chooses. I Speaker 1 (12:19) love that. It does tend to make us feel like an empty shell of ourselves when we're at the end of it. Yeah. Speaker 2 (12:26) And the rebuilding is hard and it takes a while. I do not want to set anyone up for failure, but there is hope and you will become. You will become the person that you want to become because you will invest in yourself. If you do not let this addiction have power over you and the person who struggles with the addiction, if you learn the tools to show up as you want to show up, then you become the person you want to become. I love Speaker 1 (13:05) that. I love that. And you're speaking to something that's so important because in the, in the previous relationship before everything came to light, it was all about the other, right? We were so other focused walking on